The Coming Timber Famine.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 20, 19 May 1909, Page 21

The Coming Timber Famine.

Very few people have any conception of the enormous demands beins constantly made upon the world's available stock of timber, the extent to which th" exi-timr supplies are being annually dimini-li -d. and the extraordinarily serious consequences that must ensue if nothing is done in the near future to grapple with the emergency thus created. It is generally known in New Zealand that our kauri is within measurable distance of extinction, and that many of our most valuable indigenous trees cannot long hold out against the constantly increasing demand. But even the people most directly interested in our sawmills or in the im|H>rtation of Oregon pine do not seem to realise that the shortage in our timber output is merely a singl" phase of a widespread falling off in the world's supply of timber, and that in no long period of time we will be unable to replenish our stock by importations from other countlie- except at a ruinous cost.

*• Will there be a timber famine?” asks Mr. J. H. Young in a recent issue of the ••World** Work” (Eng. ed. >. and hi> answer to thi* momentous que*tion opens in the following ominous term*: —